Business owners are tasked with juggling a number of responsibilities – to their customers, to their employees, and to their own bottom lines. One major consideration, that can impact both employee satisfaction and the overall budget, is workplace safety. Every seven seconds, a worker is injured on the job, and the downstream consequences can shake up a number of critical areas within the business. EVERY 7 SECONDS!!

Look at how these injuries add up; in just one year, 104,000,000 production days are lost to workplace injuries. Overexertion injuries are the most common, accounting for 35 percent of all injuries on the job. Between lost production and Workers’ Compensation payouts, American businesses lose over $15 billion annually just to this one type of injury alone. $15 BILLION!!

Anyone can be subject to overexertion injury. One should consider, however, might that Employee’s overexertion be the ramification of not having been tested to the proper level of physical need in the hiring process? Did they have a ‘taxing’ Prior-to-Hire Assessment that identified they had the capacity for this level of work?

• The following occupations are most susceptible:
• Service (including firefighters and police officers)
• Transportation and shipping
• Manufacturing and production
• Installation, maintenance, and repair
• Construction

While workplace accidents and injuries are sometimes inevitable, prevention is key to minimizing these events. Employers can lower the risk of workplace injuries by enlisting the help of Industrial Therapists, to provide the following services:

• Prior-to-Hire Assessments to determine a job applicant’s ability to safely perform their prospective job duties. Tested post-offer; applicant will be hired contingent on passing
• Ongoing body-part-specific and diagnosis-specific education programs for employees, to increase overall workplace safety and life wellness
• Return-to-Work Assessments, for employees returning from injury-related absences or Family & Medical Leave
• Healthy Worker Audits to ensure current employees are capable of working safely

The above methods are especially critical to preventing Presenteeism, when workers are technically present but are not fully performing their job duties. Some causes can be fatigue, physical weakness, distraction due to pain – increasing their risk of injury. Physical Capability Assessments can pinpoint those who are most at risk, allowing managers to accommodate workers or make other arrangements before a workplace injury ever occurs. Prevention, with the intervention of Industrial Therapists, truly is the most effective “medicine” in these cases, for the sake of each Employee, their Co-Employees and certainly for company budgets.